All Clear E-Book

Chris Joffe

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Bildung
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 283

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

An expert's guide to creating safety in educational environments and responding correctly when the unthinkable happens In All Clear: Lessons from a Decade Managing School Crises, safety expert Chris Joffe shows district and school leaders how to create safety in school environments and develop a plan for responding effectively in the event of emergency--whether it be from an allergy attack or an active shooter. In our ever-changing educational and cultural landscape, this is a critical resource. A sought-after safety trainer and consultant for schools, Chris draws on decades of experience to guide and empower district and school leaders to prepare for and execute crucial next steps in the wake of a school emergency. The techniques in this book are not just hypothetical. Chris Joffe has a substantive background in emergency and crisis response, and Joffe Emergency Services has been trusted to put preparedness plans into place across U.S. school districts, charter schools, private schools, and global companies. With this book, you'll learn how to prioritize the health and safety of your students in a way that considers the unique attributes of your school or district. * Follow a thoughtful but realistic approach to planning for and responding to emergency situations and recovering from crises * Gain the micro-level tools and confidence to help your community stay safer, including emergency response techniques and leadership strategies * Address environmental, social, and other barriers to school safety, in partnership with community stakeholders * Learn communication strategies that you can use to teach others how to respond in times of crisis, without generating panic All Clear empowers district and school leaders, heads of school, and school security professionals--as well as teachers, parents, and other youth leaders--to create secure learning environments where students can feel safe.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Cover

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Preface

Notes

Acknowledgments

Introduction

I: The Crisis Experience

1 How We Experience Crises

What Is a Crisis?

Notes

2 Finding Solid Ground When Crisis Emerges

Practice Makes Permanent—Tool # 2

Notes

3 My Experience with Crisis

A Shaken Sense of Safety

Loss, Confusion, and Grief

Tackling the Paralysis of Fear

Seeing My Trauma in a New Light

The Challenges We Collectively Have Yet to Overcome

We Are More Alike than We Are Different

II: What All Emergencies Have in Common

4 The Common Threads of Emergency Response

Physical Safety

Psychological Safety

Communication

Leadership

What's the Point?

Notes

5 Analyzing Risk

6 Preventing Crisis through Relationships

Notes

7 Organizing Teams, People, and Resources to Respond

Incident Command System

Incident Commander

Quick Tip on Incident Commanders

Search and Rescue

First Aid & Triage

Crisis Counseling

Attendance and Assembly

Reunification

Team Leadership

“First On” Leadership

Notes

III: The Seven Circles: A Framework for Emergency Response and Recovery

8 Initiation

Notes

9 Activation

How We Make the Most of the First Seven Minutes

Why Seven Minutes?

800 Numbers

Role of Armed vs. Unarmed Security

The Exception to Practice Makes Permanent

Notes

10 Response

11 Assessment

So Then, What Does Long‐haul Preparation Look Like?

Food, Water, Sanitation

Strategy Is an Interesting Dilemma

Returning to Community and Routine

Communication

Notes

12 Recovery

Goal

Creating the Recovery Pathway

Agency

Notes

13 Rebuilding

Implementing Progress/Learnings

The Media

Note

14 Restoration

A Grade Span Is a Lifetime in K–12

Restoration Is Not Replacement

Cyclical Orgs Will Renew Trauma Cyclically

Schools Are Learning Organizations That Promote Discovery

The Legal System Takes Time

Notes

Conclusion

The Obstacles to the Job Are the Job

Note

Appendix

Index

End User License Agreement

List of Tables

Chapter 7

Table 7.1 Responsibilities for each role or strike team deployed using a typ...

Table 7.2 Annual schedule template for crisis response training.

Chapter 8

Table 8.1 Key lessons, steps, and roles.

Chapter 9

Table 9.1 What happens when you call 911.

3

Table 9.2 Key lessons, steps, and roles.

Chapter 10

Table 10.2 Key lessons, steps, and roles.

Chapter 11

Table 11.1 Key lessons, steps, and roles.

Chapter 12

Table 12.1 Key lessons, steps, and roles.

Chapter 13

Table 13.1 Key lessons, steps, and roles.

Chapter 14

Table 14.1 Key lessons, steps, and roles.

List of Illustrations

Chapter 4

Figure 4.1: FEMA's Concentric Circles of Emergency Response.

Figure 4.2: Concentric Circles of School Safety.

Figure 4.3: SAMHSA's Guiding Principles of Trauma‐informed Care.

Chapter 5

Figure 5.1: Risk Assessment Matrix.

Figure 5.2: Recommended actions.

Chapter 6

Figure 6.1: The Swiss cheese respirator virus pandemic defense.

Figure 6.2: The Swiss cheese model for school safety.

Chapter 7

Figure 7.1: Joffe's incident command structure (1).

Figure 7.2: Joffe's incident command structure (2).

Chapter 8

Figure 8.1: Drill Cycle

Chapter 9

Figure 9.1: Response objectives from the National Fire Protection Associatio...

Figure 9.2: Number of casualties from shootings at public and private elemen...

Figure 9.3: Number of educational institutions.

Chapter 10

Figure 10.1: Occurrence vs. time.

Chapter 12

Figure 12.1: Psychological phases of a crisis.

Figure 12.2: Ingredients for recovery.

Figure 12.3: Community Self‐Sufficiency Tool.

Guide

Cover Page

All Clear

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Preface

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Table of Contents

Begin Reading

Conclusion

Appendix

Index

Wiley End User License Agreement

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In the early days of Covid‐19, Chris Joffe's unique insights and guidance helped school leaders plan weeks ahead. In All Clear, the tools and strategies he teaches will make it possible for school communities to anticipate and prepare for the unpredictable years in advance.

—Steven Lorch, Head of School, Kadima Day School, Los Angeles

Chris Joffe is the kind of person you call when you have only one call to make—a Sherpa in the wilds of crisis response. All Clear blends Joffe's EMT urgency with his CEO vision, a must for modern‐day risk management.

—Duncan Lyon, Head of School, Allen‐Stevenson School

Chris Joffe's book is a tutorial on how to master panic and turn crisis into calm. The secrets he shares in All Clear focus on the real‐life lessons he learned about the value of working with the people around you, not in spite of them. From the time he was plucked from his mother's arms and dropped into foster care at the age of five, Chris Joffe clearly has been mastering how to communicate and empower people around him during a crisis. You will want to join him after reading All Clear.

—Katherine Schweit, former agent and executive for the FBI and author of the book Stop the Killing, How to End the Mass Shooting Crisis

An impressive addition to the field of school safety and crisis management, All Clear offers invaluable insight and actionable information. With an incredible backstory, Chris Joffe incorporates his personal history with his professional experience to provide a powerful guide for emergency preparedness and crisis response. Written by a true leader in the field; I highly recommend this book.

—Nancy Zarse, PsyD, forensic psychologist and CEO and founder of Zarse Psychological Services

All Clear

Lessons from a Decade Managing School Crises

Chris Joffe

Copyright © 2024 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.

Published simultaneously in Canada.

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This book is dedicated to those society failed to protect. I'm profoundly sorry. I will fight to protect you and others until I have no fight left. I'll do so through advocacy, training, financial resources, and every other mechanism created in my lifetime. I hope others will join me in that effort. My mission in life is to create a safer world—one that doesn't leave children vulnerable, fighting for their lives. We can do better. We must do better. We deserve better.

Preface

F. Scott Fitzgerald once said, “The test of a first‐rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise.”1

After Parkland, schools across the country sought solutions in search of doing something to make themselves safer. In too many cases, schools either went it alone or went quickly to achieve solutions that would placate nervous parents. (Though that sounds critical, I don't mean to be. I get it.) In some cases, a rush to arm security or staff a police officer on campus, in others to place fences around the campus. These things all might be useful under the right circumstances and rolled out thoughtfully. In too many cases, the solution itself became the problem. In some cases, the solutions were lethal. I'll share one of those stories with you, about a seven‐year‐old named Aaron. A school installed a fence in order to mitigate the risk of someone running onto campus to cause harm. For what I believe to be the best intentions, the school moved quickly and the vendor did too. However, during recess, the fence snapped and killed Aaron. The very tool that was designed to cause safety wound up causing harm. It pains me to say this, but my team and I live these stories day in and day out. So, yes, I want you to take action as you read this book. Get a pen and paper, build a checklist, galvanize your community toward action, but note that this book—everything I do—is about taking measured action, calculated to mitigate unintended consequences.

Here's a second one. On a flight from LAX to Atlanta, I received this text from a client. “Federal Law Enforcement [agency redacted] need to arrest one of our parents.” Here was another critical moment. The risks related to an on‐campus takedown are significant. The implications of saying no to federal law enforcement are, too. This book is about building relationships enabling you to do what we did: partner with them so as to handle the arrest elsewhere.

Finally, I often look inward when starting to solve a problem, so here's one I hope you'll enjoy. Thanksgiving Day, quite some time ago, I was at my parents’ house along with a handful of other guests. My mom shrieks (never a good sign), and I look over to see the oven on fire. Apparently, the marshmallows on the top of the sweet potato dish had cooked a bit too long. I went over, grabbed the fire extinguisher, and walked toward the oven. She yelled, “Don't you dare!” I was confused and responded, “Put out the fire?” What's the alternative? Watch the house burn down? I thought to myself…

So who's in charge? Me, who has the training and experience to know that left unaddressed, this oven fire is capable of burning the whole house down, or Mom, because, well, she's Mom? This book is about reaching a conclusion to that question. In our schools, as you'll find later on in your reading, there's a tension between the traditional or “normal” leader of the school and those who either are the crisis leaders or think they should be. We had a more dramatic version of this story play out when two administrators struggled to decide which one was in charge in the midst of an active shooter that was near, but not at, the school in question. The two administrators jockeyed for authority for about 15 minutes while no decisive action was taken. It's as if they were in the kitchen, fire extinguisher in hand, fire burning, and they fought about the next step rather than taking it. Worse, it's more common than you might realize, but we'll find the solutions to that problem together through this book. And, if you were wondering, Mom remained in charge on Thanksgiving. I eventually managed to put the fire out with a watering can, and we had what turned out to be excellent—albeit smoky—sweet potatoes for dinner.

This book will detail stories like Aaron's, which I hope we can eliminate in time, and stories like that text message, which I hope can become the norm for schools and communities across the United States and around the world.

On gun violence. As of the date of the publishing of this book, firearms account for approximately 19 percent of childhood deaths (ages 1–18).2 Children are more likely to be killed by a gun than a car accident, suffocation, or poisoning. We must not allow this to be the status quo.

This book is about the big things that require collaboration and alignment across entire schools, even communities beyond their gates, but it's also about the little things that every single person can do to make the world a safer place. At least to make your world a safer place. If you find yourself without a list of tangible action items that you can implement by the end of the book, I've failed.

I grimace at the question “What's the one thing that would make schools safer?” There is no panacea. As we'll discuss in great detail, my fundamental belief is that everything in life is a calculated risk. Therefore, I cannot guarantee you will be safe. Instead, I work to educate you on the risks and the sensible mitigation tools with which you can improve your own chances of being safe. I know it's a burden and a great responsibility. You. Those around you. Your community. In that order. That's the flow, and that's how we'll prioritize safety.

If you're reading this book as an administrator of a school, I want you to get your pen and paper ready and build your action plan as we go. I've called out some action items that I think are the most universal, but many others are found buried in the stories we'll examine.

If you're reading this book as a parent of a child in a school, my greatest ask to you is to prioritize what you bring to your administrators. David Allen, a productivity expert, said so bluntly, “You can do anything, but not everything.” This is as true of your children's school's administrators as it is for you. In this book are some of the tools to evaluate and prioritize risk. That's how you do the right things.

If you're reading this book as a teacher, a board member, or a member of a community at large, my hope is that you'll pay close attention to the roles and responsibilities outlined in Chapter 7. Those will guide you invariably toward the most successful possible outcome given a set of terrible facts you may have to wade through.

If you're reading this book in a crisis of your own, please reach out for support. You can reach me, or my team, you can reach your local teams of first responders, or you can reach out to a friend in education who may have a contact, but please don't go it alone. I am convinced this work takes a village. Preparing, responding, recovering, preventing, these are team efforts. The work will be hard. You deserve a team of supporters.

Notes

1

February 1936,

Esquire

, “The Crack‐Up: A desolately frank document from one for whom the salt of life has lost its savor by F. Scott Fitzgerald,” start p. 41, quote p. 41, column 1, Esquire Inc., Chicago, Illinois (Esquire archive at

classic.esquire.com

).

2

“Underlying Cause of Death, 2018–2021, Single Race Request,” n.d.,

https://wonder.cdc.gov/ucd-icd10-expanded.html

.

Acknowledgments

To the faculty and staff at the first schools I trained, you put me through a university of sorts, enabling me to learn how to build a business that would serve you and countless others. Thank you.

To Janet, who patiently and diligently sat with me for hours on end to describe the challenges her school was facing and test new ideas for how to solve them. Joffe Emergency Services exists today because of you. Thank you.

To Tom, who put the phone in my hand and said, “Sink or swim” as I made my first cold call. Without you, there would be no company.

To my mother, who lovingly and patiently, and patiently (see what I did there?), raised me. Without you, there would be no me.

To my colleagues at Joffe in both the early days and the more recent. There are too many to name specifically. Those who helped us get started never got to see the business thrive, and those who have seen it thrive will never know of some of the darkest days. Both groups have made this organization what it is. Thank you.

To the Advisory Board at Joffe, who challenges my thinking in every conceivable way. Thank you. With your partnership we are building something incredible.

To Rebecca and Ashley, my village, who helped to make writing this book possible.

To Scott, who got me started down the path of writing.

To Steve and Marilyn, who provided start‐up money to a kid with no credit.

To the patients and students we've protected, you give us purpose.

To Lorena, you've created a light in the darkness. Thank you.

To Ed, who created the initial inspiration for my work in outside‐the‐box‐EMS.

To Charlie, who brought context to my work.

There are countless others whom I wish I could identify specifically. As you'll read, my life has been touched by numerous incredibly generous relationships. I am forever grateful to be a part of this village.

To you, if you're reading this, thank you. I hope it helps. Please write to me at [email protected] with feedback, questions, and stories for the decades ahead.

Introduction

This is a book about people. It's about how we think, feel, and respond to some of the hardest moments of our lives. It's about what we can do to overcome the barriers that hold us back from taking action. It's about how we can work together to ensure every school is as safe as possible for the children who attend them. It's a book about emergencies, but more specifically, it's a book about the impact emergencies have on us as humans, and how we can prevent, prepare for, and mitigate the impacts of the emergencies that we'll inevitably face.

I wrote this book because I had a sudden realization during the early days of Covid that I am not a baker, I didn't like Tiger King, and I couldn't stand the idea of an air fryer. I, and my team, were actually as busy as we'd ever been during those first days working to help schools transition from in‐person learning to virtual, to develop testing operations, and to craft plans for Covid exposures. I'm a school and event safety consultant and operate a nationwide school safety organization serving primarily K–12 schools in the US.

I realized during the pandemic that the work my team is doing in schools will, at best, reach tens of thousands of schools. We'll never be able to get to everyone. I believe every school deserves to have the tools to be as safe as possible, and I believe the lessons we teach can help every school get there. The goal of this book is to offer some of the tools and insights we have shared with tens of thousands of educators across the country so you can work with your team to implement them. From here, it's up to you to implement these strategies, and my sincere hope is that between the book and the accompanying online resources you will be able to do just that.

I've observed all too many school leaders, school communities, and even public safety leaders struggle through emergency response and recovery. In so many cases, I hear quite literally, “There's no manual for enduring crisis.” My hope is that you now have that manual; a tool to help you endure crises, and perhaps a tool to help you prevent them and mitigate their long‐term implications.

There have been hundreds, if not thousands, of pieces of research done on the intersection of psychology, decision making, emergency response, recovery, and human connection. This book would not have been possible without the enormous body of work from which I'm building upon. I cite many experts and researchers throughout this book, but the body of work that existed before me is too vast to cite individually. At the end of this book are a list of other books, references, and materials which you might consider reading—many of these influenced my perspective.

Throughout this book, we talk about crisis and emergencies because that's what I've always been passionate about. And that's what you came here for. But at the heart of emergency response are the people responding to them. Their actions. Their emotions. Their thoughts. So I also spend a lot of time talking about that—the physiological and psychological components that define emergency response. The first part of this book is focused on this: the human aspect of emergencies. I share information about how our brains and bodies are programmed to respond in crisis, how we can manage that response to work in our favor, and how my personal interaction with crisis and trauma has shaped my perspective and understanding.

In the second part, we talk more about how humans tend to work together—and against one another—as they respond to crisis and how I've learned people can work together in crises the best. We discuss the importance of understanding and building relationships with students throughout your own community to increase meaningful, timely, and proactive communication. Finally, we'll discuss how to build teams that work together to respond to major crises.

In the third part, we unpack the school‐based emergency using time as our guide for some of the critical items that need to happen. In medical training, we use the phrase “time is life” to convey the importance of quick hospital treatment for a stroke, a heart attack, or a traumatic incident. In truth the work we're talking about is no different. In emergencies, items not completed in the immediate will begrudge us throughout the rest of the process. We unpack the actions to take—and not to take—to make the best use of time along the continuum of an emergency.

The most disappointing truth I must confess to you is that there is no such thing as a 100 percent guarantee of safety. I wish I could say otherwise. As we will uncover, everything in life is a calculated risk: driving, flying, even loving. I believe life is selecting which risks are worth taking and that intelligence is managing the right risk along the way. I want to help you shine the light on the risks around you and help you mitigate those that are unreasonable or misaligned with your values.

Throughout this book, I use the word “I” quite a bit because my use of the word “we” might be confusing or create grammatical errors and issues. There is very little I've ever done alone that is worth writing about. While they're not named individually, I owe a debt of gratitude to my incredible team, our most collaborative and well engaged clients, and so many more partners from law enforcement, EMS, Fire, and other organizations. To protect privacy and out of respect for those involved, I've changed names and locations of most critical examples and events I mention throughout this book.

I recognize that living life day‐to‐day as if you're in a perpetual state of emergency is neither practicable nor reasonable. But as a starting point, it's important to know that being prepared for anything that could happen—anything that's conceivable in each instance—is essential for work, life, and one's pursuit of happiness. This is what this book is about: studying, preparing, and positioning yourself for the unexpected, including an occasional or incidental emergency. Let's get started.

IThe Crisis Experience

1How We Experience Crises

What Is a Crisis?

When I say the word “crisis,” what do you think of? Maybe you picture a person who is choking and needs their airway cleared. Or a flooding basement. Or an emergency evacuation due to nearby wildfires. There's no doubt that these are crises. But the truth is, crises come in all shapes and sizes. A missed deadline. A fender bender. A canceled flight. A broken arm. These are not usually what we think of when asked to imagine a crisis, but they can be powerful inducers of stress, and set off a physiological response that can mirror what we experience in a larger‐scale crisis such as a school on fire or an active shooter event.

Dr. Saul McLeod defines stress as “a biological and psychological response experienced on encountering a threat that we feel we do not have the resources to deal with.”1 The body and brain have an automatic, programmed response when they detect stress. This means that we're practicing crisis management on a near daily basis. This is an important reminder to kick off this book, and for our understanding of how we, as people, respond to emergencies. Because it means you already have many of the tools we'll work to galvanize together.

I want to note that I'm using the word “crisis” here intentionally. Throughout this book, we talk a lot about emergencies, which we define as situations that have the potential to cause physical or emotional harm to a group of people. Here we're using the word “crisis” because we're referring not to the nature of the event itself but the stress response it triggers in individuals. Whether it's a burning building or a burnt dinner, our brains can see both as a crisis, depending on the circumstances, and both can trigger a stress response that impacts us physically, psychologically, and emotionally.

What happens to our brains and bodies in crisis?

Have you ever been on an airplane with more than a little turbulence? You likely have—perhaps many times—and you likely know the feeling you get when it happens. Maybe your heart skips a beat when you're lifted out of your seat by one of the bigger bumps. Maybe your stomach is in knots. Maybe you feel a rush of anxiety as your mind races and envisions what might happen next. Maybe you go into planning mode—deciding what you'll do if something goes wrong and the plane has to make an emergency landing. Maybe you tell yourself, “I've been on a million flights before with turbulence; this is just like those. I'll be fine.”

That's the human stress response. Every moment of every day, our bodies and brains are interpreting what's happening around us. With every experience we have and every situation we find ourselves in, our bodies are taking in information, putting the pieces together, assessing it, and deciding whether it's stressful. The decision is based on a combination of sensory input and processing (what did I see and hear in the situation?) and stored memories (what happened the last time I was in a similar situation?).2 This information is sent to the amygdala, an area of the brain that contributes to emotional processing, which then interprets the images and sounds. If it determines there is danger, it instantly sends a distress signal to the hypothalamus, the part of the brain in charge of the stress response.

Here's what happens next:

The hypothalamus operates as your body's “command center” (a term we'll use throughout the book to mean the center of decision making for the key stakeholders). Your brain communicates to the rest of your body via the nervous system, which controls your body's core functions such as breathing, heartbeat, your fight‐or‐flight response, and more. In essence, your nervous system can be further broken down into two sections:

Your sympathetic nervous system: fight‐or‐flight response (think of the accelerator in your car); and

Your parasympathetic nervous system: rest and digest (think of the brake pedal in your car).

When your hypothalamus (command center) sends a danger signal to your sympathetic nervous system, you go into what's commonly known as fight‐or‐flight mode, and your body begins to activate its response. On a school campus, this would be like telling all your security officers to brace for incoming danger. They'd run around and check every exit, stop releasing students from the buildings, “shunt” all the people they could into a specific part of campus and then work to defend that part of campus to the best of their ability while they wait for help. Well, your biological and physiological systems are doing the same thing. Your body begins shunting all available resources to your brain, heart, and core and begins using a stress hormone called cortisol to speed things up that need to go quickly. Your heart rate speeds up, your blood pressure goes up, your breathing gets faster, your sight, hearing, and other senses become more sensitive, all of which helps your body put on a better defense against the risk you're facing.

All these changes happen so quickly that you're not even cognitively able to process the event until after your body has processed and distributed some of these chemicals and fortified its defenses. It's truly incredible to reflect on all that our bodies are hardwired to do. Every so often we hear about a mother who lifts a car off her child or some other seemingly superhuman feat. This is thanks to the strength unlocked via your nervous system releasing epinephrine (adrenaline) and shifting blood glucose and other naturally occurring chemicals to your cells in order to accelerate and strengthen your defense mechanisms.

Similarly, every so often we hear about the person who jumped out of the way of an oncoming train. Same concept here. They probably didn't even realize what they were doing in the moment, but we are biologically hardwired to protect ourselves, and sometimes our biology takes over.

But these states are designed to be short‐term. And your body will eventually require a recovery period to downshift from the crisis experience. We'll talk more about that in later parts of the book, but for now, I want to remind you that you're not superhuman, just human. That means you can do truly awesome things and you'll also be exhausted by them (that's the parasympathetic nervous system at play).3